In Whack

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

That may be clear to those who've read the books, but unfortunately libertarian themes don't come through in the film. If you want to see a good, recent libertarian movie, you gotta see Serenity. Or heck, watch the entire TV series. As Mal, Serenity's captain, says:

Sure as I know anything I know this, [the big, bad government] will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people...better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave.

Right on! Compare that to a passage Newman quotes in his piece on Lewis (emphasis mine):

In an essay that deserves to be better known, "Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State," Lewis argued that the state no longer exists to "protect our rights but to do us good or make us good — anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name 'leaders' for those who were once 'rulers.' We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, 'Mind your own business.' Our whole lives are their business."